Legal Research

NY State Newspapers Database

Posted on March 26, 2011
For law students trying to find background and public opinion for New York legislation and legislative history, this database is a find. New York State Newspapers contains more than 2 million articles from over 40 newspapers representing regions and communities throughout the state...

Research Skills Employers Expect You to Know

Posted on March 25, 2011
Attorneys, law firm and corporate librarians all agree that new attorneys need certain research skills. Brush up on yours at the Library's Top 10 Research Skills workshops. This is the last week they will be available.1Learn how to develop a research strategy and find out when to STOP researching - Monday, March 28, 12:10 ? 1pm in Room 242 (repeated on March 30, 1:10-2pm in Room 242) 2...

An Execution Because Of Missed Legal Paperwork?

Posted on March 24, 2011
In a story-line reminiscent of Kafka, the U. S. Supreme Court will decide later this year whether an Alabama man can be executed because his attorneys missed a filing deadline. Read more here.Ernster, the Virtual Library Cat

U.S. Government response to Bit.Libya

Posted on March 23, 2011
Did you know that bit.ly is a Libyan domain name? Because of this, the U.S. government is now looking smart for moving its short URLs to go.usa.gov.[hat tip: 3 Geeks and a Law Blog]Ernster, the Virtual Library Cat

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Online Resources: White Collar Crime Report (BNA)

Posted on March 22, 2011
BNA's White Collar Crime Report follows legal developments affecting the prosecution and defense of fraud and other white collar crimes. It allows the user to track litigation and other legal developments involving white collar crime cases in all federal courts, and significant legal developments in state courts...

Statistical Abstract of the United States

Posted on March 21, 2011
Have you ever used the Statistical Abstract of the United States? Published since 1878 it is the authoritative and comprehensive summary of statistics on the social, political and economic organization of the United States. The U.S. budget for 2012 does not contain funding for the Statistical Compendia Branch (Census)...

Interesting paper on laptops in law school classrooms

Posted on March 20, 2011
The issue of laptops in law school classrooms has been an ongoing issue for several years now. Law schools across the country have taken different approaches on laptop use in the classroom. Recently, law professor Kristen Murray, from Temple University James E...

New York Times To Charge for Web Access

Posted on March 19, 2011
You may have known it was coming, but this week the New York Times officially announced the details of its digital subscription plans going into effect March 28, and just how much web-based access to Times articles will remain free for U.S. readers without home delivery subscriptions...

What Employers Want You to Know

Posted on March 18, 2011
Next workshop in our Top 10 Research Skills series - Hear it from the people who know . . . Get research tips and find out what employers really expect from the inside ? law firm and corporate librarians will give you the inside perspective with great tips on how to succeed on Monday, March 21, 12:10-1:30pm in Room 242...

Open Records Law Still Difficult To Use?

Posted on March 17, 2011
So say certain witnesses who are testifying before the Congress regarding the U.S. Freedom of Information Act. They claim that the law ?remains an unwieldy and inefficient tool for obtaining government records despite President Barack Obama's promise to reinvigorate the law and improve his administration's transparency?...

NY Chief Judge Seeks Mandatory E-Filing

Posted on March 16, 2011
As part of a budget proposal announced last week that includes large cuts for New York's courts, Chief Judge Lippman also announced a proposal to make electronic filing of court documents mandatory throughout New York.For researchers, this is good news, as electronically filed court documents tend to be made available online...

Online Resources: Antitrust & Trade Regulation Report

Posted on March 15, 2011
If you are looking for federal, state, and international coverage of competition and deceptive trade practices law, check out BNA's Antitrust & Trade Regulation Report. The Report provides access to significant judicial, legislative, administrative, and enforcement actions from Washington, DC, the states, and around the world...

Sunshine Week

Posted on March 14, 2011
Sunshine week is an annual initiative to promote the importance of open government and freedom of information. Sunshine Week seeks to enlighten and empower people to play an active role in their government at all levels, and to give them access to information that makes their lives better and their communities stronger...

LexisNexis to Introduce Lexis Advance for Associates

Posted on March 13, 2011
Lexis and Westlaw have released several new legal research tools over the last year targeted toward law students and practitioners. The latest comes from LexisNexis, who recently announced they are releasing a new tool titled Lexis Advance for Associates later this year...

Business Source Premier

Posted on March 12, 2011
Most law students know that law journal articles are available on Lexis, Westlaw, and perhaps HeinOnline and some other legal databases. But where do you turn when you need scholarly and other journal articles from the world of business, economics, finance, marketing and advertising, human resources or communications? One of the best databases for for business and business-related interdisciplinary articles is Business Source Premier...

Research Skills Employers Want You to Know

Posted on March 11, 2011
Employers expect you to know how to research. According to law firm librarians you should ?Know the Basics?, ?Know Where to Start? and ?Know efficiency on Lexis and Westlaw is essential?. To help you refresh your skills, the Library will present TOP 10 Research Skills Workshops March 14-30...

Google and Content Farms

Posted on March 09, 2011
Google has been getting some press over the last two weeks for its attempt to purge "search engine spam" from its search results. Santa Clara Prof. Eric Goldman posted some related links and thoughts here. Part of Google's purge is aimed at online stores that use less than savory methods to get their products to appear ahead of their competitors' products in Google search results...

Research Resources: The Economists' Voice

Posted on March 08, 2011
If you are looking for serious economic analysis about public policy and current issues, try The Economists' Voice. Edited by Aaron Edlin and Joseph Stiglitz, recipient of the 2001 Nobel Prize for Economics, together with Jonathan Carmel, J. Bradford DeLong and Jeffrey Zwiebel, The Economists' Voice offers access to full text (PDF) articles on a broad range of policy issues...

Comparative Criminal Procedure research guide

Posted on March 07, 2011
From the terrific librarians at the University of Chicago's D'Angelo Law Library, Comparative Criminal Procedure is a guide to English language resources. The "Resources by Subject" page contains materials organized by 1) country or region and 2) notable sub-topics within criminal procedure...

Law Student Social Networking survey

Posted on March 06, 2011
The National Law Journal recently published an article on law student social networking. A survey of 400 law students across the nation was taken with interesting findings. Most law students reported having problems following up with potential employees, fostering meaningful mentoring relationships and lack of confidence in their networking skills...

Public Interest Law Story

Posted on March 05, 2011
March is the month of Hofstra's Annual Public Justice Foundation Auction. It's also Women's History Month. "Our History is Our Strength," the 2011 theme, is superbly represented by the life and career of Clara Foltz, California's first woman lawyer and the inventor of the role of public defender in the United States...

Virtually Mobile

Posted on March 04, 2011
Yes, even a virtual feline needs to go mobile now and again. I have just read about an upgrade to an organizational utility called Evernote . I can download Evernote to my laptop or workstation and my iphone or other smartphone - including Droid phones...

U.S. Supreme Court Ethics Bill?

Posted on March 03, 2011
Two Democratic lawmakers have announced legislation that would significantly alter the ways in which U.S. Supreme Court justices handle ethical questions. According to a recent news article, ?[T]he legislation would require the Judicial Conference to set up a process for taking in ethics complaints about the justices, and for investigating those complaints...

Research Resources: Family Law Reporter

Posted on March 02, 2011
Are you looking for a family law resource? Try Family Law Reporter (BNA). The Family Law Reporter is a weekly publication containing new federal and state cases, legislation, trends, and issues in the area of family law.To access Family Law Reporter (BNA):* Go to the Library's home page, click "Online Resources"* Click the "Family Law" link* Click on "Family Law Reporter (BNA)"Ernster, the Virtual Library Cat

"Free" Federal Court Documents

Posted on March 01, 2011
We have posted about free access to federal court documents before here and here.This is just a note on how to get federal court documents for "free."Justia's free federal dockets site republishes many of the federal court dockets that are available from PACER (Public Access to Court Electronic Records) for 8 cents per page...

Full Text Reports

Posted on February 28, 2011
Full text reports is a site that offers the full text documents published by government, academic, research institutes and more. Not the easiest site to search but it does have subject categories and tabs for type of publisher and by government. This is a good place to search for current, scholarly and authoritative documents...

Information for Submitting Articles to Law Reviews & Journals

Posted on February 27, 2011
The Information for Submitting Articles to Law Reviews & Journals is a helpful guide that contains information about submitting articles to law reviews and journals. It is available on SSRN and is written by Allen Rostron and Nancy Levit. The recently updated guide outlines methods for submitting articles for 202 law reviews...

Death Penalty Information Center

Posted on February 26, 2011
It has been more than three years since my last post about the Death Penalty Information Center, so it's time for an update. This nonprofit site remains a valuable resource for law students and faculty, with statistics, reports, state-by-state information, and the latest news on death penalty legislation, sentencing, and other issues...

Tracking Congress

Posted on February 25, 2011
Wonder what Congress is doing (or not doing) about Food Safety, on the health reform law or two of my interests, cybersecurity and claiming pets as dependents for tax deductions? Govtrack.us is your answer.On Govtrack.us, you can set up email alerts or RSS feeds to track particular bills in congress, subject areas, members of Congress or general trackers for the activity of the whole Congress...

New Litigation Skill: Facebook Stalking

Posted on February 23, 2011
Recent articles detail how attorneys now routinely search for information about potential jurors on the internet. These articles are summarized well by a Forbes blog post. The gist is that, if you have lax privacy settings on Facebook and you are called for jury duty, expect jury consultants or paralegals to analyze your Facebook page (at least if there are enough resources devoted to the litigation to pay for someone to do that sort of work)...

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